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Mary Sully’s Personality Prints etc.
The son’s in town and yesterday we thought we’d note the upcoming holiday by making a pilgrimage to the incredible Christmas tree at the Metropolitan Museum, with all of its hand-covered antique creche figures…and naturally to wander the galleries. Since we’ve been posting a lot of Native American stuff of late, I was inspired to pop into the Met’s Art of Native America gallery, where we found a wonderful surprise.
(That’s the son in the lower left!) One of the exhibitions on view was Mary Sully: Native Modern, which proved a delightful surprise. Mary Sully (real name Susan Mabel Deloria, 1896-1963) was a great granddaughter of the important American portraitist Thomas Sully whom I wrote about here, and also a member of the Yankton Dakota Sioux tribe. Few knew about the art she made during her lifetime, but of late it has begin to be celebrated. In the ’20s and ’30s she created these works of art she called “personality prints”, which were essentially abstractions based on traditional Dakota textile motifs inspired by some of her favorite public figures. Most of them seemed to be show figures which of course got me jazzed. I took these clumsy, crooked photos. I’ve blogged about all of them, just follow the links.
Florenz Ziegfeld. Note how the top panel seems to be doing a Busby Berkley thing — the other two panels also evoke chorus line formations.
Walter Winchell — evokes broadcast waves and that Morse Code sound he always opened his radio show with.
The ID to this one was off to the side — it’s inspired by Alfred Lunt and and Lynn Fontanne
Mary Sully: Native Modernis up at the Met through January 12. More info here.
And here’s a little bonus post. A few galleries away we came upon another exhibition, entitled Flight Into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876-Now. As the title states, it’s about how the culture and especially the aesthetics of Egypt have inspired those in the African diaspora. Just a couple of items I wanted to report. One was a video display showing a comedy sketch from The Richard Pryor Show where a bunch of British archaeologists dip up a mummy’s tomb only to discover (to Pryor’s character’s delight) that the Pharoah was black. And there were two photographs each of which I loved so much I’d love to have them framed and hanging in my house.
Louis and Lucille in Egypt at the Sphinx, 1961, of course captures Mr. and Mrs. Louis Armstrong at the stated location, photographed by Artin Derbalian.
Muhammad Ali at Giza, 1966 was taken by Ahmed Shehaby.
Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Nowruns through February 17 at the Met. More info here.
We saw much else of course, but this is what seemed especially germane to report back here! Have a Hella Holiday!
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